Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety (California Studies in Food and Culture) by Nestle Marion

Author:Nestle, Marion [Nestle, Marion]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2010-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

THE POLITICS OF

GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT

AMONG THE LESSONS OF THE STARLINK CORN EPISODE IS THIS: genetically modified ingredients pervade the U.S. food supply, but consumers cannot identify them because the foods are not labeled. This situation was not inevitable. Federal agencies made “science-based” decisions that transgenic foods are equivalent to conventional foods (DNA is DNA no matter where it comes from) and require no special regulatory oversight. In this chapter, we will see how the biotechnology industry lobbied successfully for this approach, using the now familiar mantra: the techniques are inherently safe, the products are no different than those produced through traditional genetics, and labeling is not only unnecessary but misleading.

In choosing this approach, federal regulators permitted companies to develop genetically modified foods without having to alert regulatory agencies (premarket notification), evaluate the safety of the products in advance (premarket testing), or label them once they were ready to market. In approving transgenic foods, they restricted the debate to science-based issues of safety. If the foods appeared safe for human health they could be marketed: plant first, then deal with problems. As discussed earlier, this approach differs from the method required by the precautionary principle: demonstrate safety before planting. The science-based approach also excluded debate about the societal issues summarized in table 2 (page 17). The regulatory agencies interpreted their mandates to mean that they could not consider dread-and-outrage factors when making decisions about genetically modified foods.

This chapter examines how food biotechnology companies achieved a “plant first” regulatory environment. To understand the politics of the current system, we must recall that Congress wrote the principal laws affecting food safety in 1906, long before anyone knew anything about DNA, let alone transgenic foods. As noted earlier, the discovery of recombinant DNA techniques in the 1970s stimulated discussion about how to assure their safety. At hearings in 1983, Congress reviewed arguments for federal regulation of biotechnology. The following year, under pressure from the pharmaceutical industry, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) proposed a “Coordinated Framework” for the regulation of biotechnology and issued a final version in 1986. The pharmaceutical industry argued that because DNA is DNA, drugs produced through recombinant techniques require no special considerations, laws, or agencies. The OSTP agreed and established four principles: (1) existing laws are sufficient for regulation, (2) regulation applies to the products, not the processes by which they were developed, (3) safety should be assessed on a case-by-case basis, and (4) agencies should coordinate their regulatory efforts.1

This last principle would prove especially challenging because the Coordinated Framework distributed regulatory responsibilities among a large number of federal entities: three offices reporting directly to the president; three cabinet-level federal agencies; two major subagencies within one cabinet-level agency; eight centers, services, offices, or programs within major agencies; and five federal committees—all operating under the authority of 10 distinct acts of Congress. Any regulatory plan of that complexity suggests that coordination will be difficult—impossible is more like it—and that oversight will be plagued from the start by gaps, duplication of effort, and overlapping responsibilities.

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